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March 29, 2014

[Even as much of the country grows disillusioned with the
Congress party, the Gandhi name reigns supreme in Amethi, which has 1.4 million
voters according to a 2009 Election Commission report. However, the Aam Aadmi
Party is hoping that it can gain some traction through people like Mr. Dubey in
fielding Kumar Vishwas, a poet and a professor of Hindi literature, as a
challenger to Mr. Gandhi in the race for the lower house of Parliament, or Lok
Sabha.]

Amethi district of Uttar Pradesh, India, with his supporters on
Monday.

Mr. Vishwas has been fielded against Rahul Gandhi, vice president

of
the Congress party.

AMETHI,
India — The residents of this constituency in the northern state of
Uttar Pradesh take pride in this area’s association with the Gandhis. The
family began its political history here in 1977, when Sanjay Gandhi, son of the
prime minister at the time, Indira Gandhi, chose to run for Parliament in
Amethi because it was close to his mother’s district.

He lost his first election but won in 1980 on the promise of
turning Amethi into another London. He died in a plane crash shortly after
being elected, but his brother, Rajiv, won the seat in 1981 and set up
factories. Since then, every Gandhi who has run for Parliament from this
constituency has won, thanks to the family’s charisma, said Sharat Pradhan, a
veteran journalist from Lucknow.

So when Brijesh Dubey, an unemployed 35-year-old in one of
Amethi’s villages, dared to point out in an interview earlier this week that
Amethi’s parliamentary representative, Rahul Gandhi, the vice president of the
governing Indian National Congress, had not brought in more jobs, he was
shouted down by his friends.

“Amethi is Rahul Gandhi,” said Hariraj Singh, a 55-year-old
farmer. “Everyone in the world knows Amethi because of the Gandhi name.”

Even as much of the country grows disillusioned with the
Congress party, the Gandhi name reigns supreme in Amethi, which has 1.4 million
voters according to a 2009 Election Commission report. However, the Aam Aadmi
Party is hoping that it can gain some traction through people like Mr. Dubey in
fielding Kumar Vishwas, a poet and a professor of Hindi literature, as a
challenger to Mr. Gandhi in the race for the lower house of Parliament, or Lok
Sabha.

Analysts say that Mr. Vishwas, 44, has no chance of defeating
Mr. Gandhi, 43, but the Aam Aadmi Party, in typical fashion, is ignoring the
odds. Arvind Kejriwal, chief of the Aam Aadmi Party,
said this battle against Mr. Gandhi was one of the most important of this
election, as it was a symbol of the common man standing up to the dynastic
politics of the Congress party.

Mr. Vishwas, who was a professor in his home town of Ghaziabad,
Uttar Pradesh, has the herculean task of not only winning the minds of voters
on the practical issues of employment and infrastructure, but also their
hearts. Voters here remain especially fond of Mr. Gandhi’s father, Rajiv, the
former prime minister of India, whom they elected four times to Parliament
before he was assassinated in 1991.

Mr. Vishwas said in an interview that he was confident that he
could win over Amethi through his on-the-ground campaigning.

“This is not about Kumar Vishwas winning, but about Rahul Gandhi
losing,” Mr. Vishwas said. “None of the parties have given the people of Amethi
a strong challenger.”

To show voters that he is serious about representing them, Mr.
Vishwas has moved along with his family into a rented house in Amethi. Mr.
Vishwas said he was looking for permanent housing because he will stay even if
he loses, noting that Mr. Gandhi does not live in Amethi and stays in a
guesthouse when he visits.

“Rahul Gandhi can come and go from the guesthouse, but this is
our home,” he said. “Only when my family lives here can I experience the
problems of this place.”

Over the past three months, the Aam Aadmi Party team in this
rural area has visited over 700 villages in Amethi, canvassing them on foot.
Mr. Vishwas, who has spent nights in some of these hamlets, is gearing up to
visit 400 during this election season.

“The Congress had never taken out a padyatra,” he said,
referring to walking campaigns. “We were the first to do it here.”

The party’s physical presence is something of a surprise to the
Amethi’s residents, who rarely interact with Mr. Gandhi in person.

Shiv Prasad Pandey, who runs a tobacco store, said that he was
hurt when Mr. Gandhi did not show up for a meeting in his village, where many
waited late into the night, last month.

“I was practicing what to say to him,” said Mr. Pandey, 35. “We
don’t even want to discuss the problem of roads and jobs, but we just want him
to come and talk to us.”

Most Amethi residents who were interviewed expressed support for
the Congress Party, but Neerja Chowdhury, a former political editor of the
Indian Express newspaper, said the younger generations and first-time voters
had shown a growing disillusionment. In the state assembly elections in 2012,
the party lost three of the five seats from Amethi.

Santosh Kumar, 23, and Makhan Lal, 19, said they wanted their
next leader to generate employment. The two friends pointed out that Mr. Gandhi
had not revived the defunct factories, which his father had established during
the 1980s in an effort to transform Amethi into an industrial hub.

Mr. Vishwas, on the other hand, has promised to get these
factories reopened and introduce train service to the city of Allahabad, 100
kilometers, or 60 miles, south of Amethi, that would get residents to the
closest intellectual center in 75 minutes.

Mr. Kumar, who runs a furniture shop, has decided to vote for
the Aam Aadmi Party. Mr. Lal, a high school student, is still mulling over
whether to give Mr. Gandhi another chance.

“The shock of the defeat in state elections did not improve the
situation here, so perhaps its time for another shock,” he said.

But even if there are some rumblings of dissatisfaction, the Aam
Aadmi Party is still a hard sell in this area, where loyalty to the Gandhis has
been forged over decades. Also, the anticorruption platform of the Aam Aadmi
Party, which has resonated with the India’s urban middle class, has few takers
in eastern Uttar Pradesh.

“They don’t fit in rural constituencies, where people like
powerful people,” said Ashutosh Misra, a political scientist at Lucknow
University.

Mr. Singh, the farmer, said the Gandhi family had continued to
lead the nation despite the sacrifices and tragedies that its members had
endured, so Mr. Gandhi deserved to represent the area.

“His grandmother and father have died for this country,” he
said, referring also to Indira Gandhi, who was assassinated in 1984. “What else
do people want?”

Betwa Sharma is a freelance journalist based in New Delhi.
Follow her on Twitter @betwasharma.